It's a modem - what makes it suck?
Is every Qualcomm modem other than their top-of-the-line model with highest network performance considered trash? Because those other models also aren't competing on performance or features.
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Apple Says iPhone 16e's New C1 Modem is Just the 'Start' in Interview
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Is every Qualcomm modem other than their top-of-the-line model with highest network performance considered trash? Because those other models also aren't competing on performance or features.
I'm gonna hold out for the 1nm M9C5 iPhone Air Mini and then pair them with the AirPods Pro 4 with H7 chips and all week battery life.
It isn't revisionist more like hindsight is 20/20 given the actions made back in the day.
I agree Steve wanted only web apps on it as the concept of an App Store wasn't that popular back in 2007.
IIRC in 2007 the UK and other rich nations got the iPhone 2G first ahead of the rest of world with iPhone 3G.
Maybe by the time they get to C8, they’ll finally be mid-engine.
The Apple modem is inherited from old Intel modem. Poor wireless reception (which I consider it is one of the most important thing for a phone), slower switching between 4G/5G, lack of mmWave.
Even Apple know this modem is not on par with Qualcomm and yet they still choose to put an inferior product on $600 dollars phone and they will continue to shove it into their newer products.
Apple modem just doesn't compete with Qualcomm. This switch is entirely from Apple's greed. It isn't switching from Intel to Apple Silicon, it is switching from a better product to an inferior one.
We don't even know how the new Apple modem performs yet!
Can't we wait to see how it tests in the real world?
The 16e is fulfilling one of its roles in this case too - nudging you to pay more for the 16
Apple’s price ladder keeps getting more filled-in and easier to climb.
Do you have any quantification of this inferiority? Do you know that that users would not accept the trade-off for the better battery life?
It is Apple. They were the one put Intel modem from iPhone 7 all the way up to iPhone 11 series. They knew Intel wasn’t on par of Qualcomm, but they still did anyway.
Apple cannot be trusted on this matter. They know their modem is not on par, and they admitted. Otherwise, they won’t say:Apple's goal with the C1 modem was not to match the sheer performance or specifications of rival modems, like those from Qualcomm.
Old Intel modem isn’t anywhere near efficiency, and it sucked in terms of reception.
If reception isn’t the most important thing for a cellphone, then I don’t know what it is. The modem consume more power if reception is bad, and it is highly likely the new one doesn’t match Qualcomm’s offering.
I remember articles about Apple interchanging between Intel and Qualcomm in the same model phone. Qualcomm modems were always better performing.
It was a bit worse than that. When the Intel modem was demonstrated to be inferior, Apple limited/crippled Qualcomm performance so the difference was less obvious.
Yeah I can’t tell the difference between 400mbps and 500mbps. Typically I prob only get 100ish.
Yeah, this. I defy most users to tell (without a synthetic benchmark) what flavor of 5G they’re using at any given time. I barely perceive a difference even when my phone falls back to LTE.I'm planning to get this phone. Anyone who is complaining about the alleged "slower speeds" is probably missing the point that a large chunk of people getting this phone will likely be people like me, who never had an iPhone with 5G, or people who had an SE or something with lesser 5G than the 16 anyway.
Meanwhile, I don't use mobile data enough to notice a speed issue most of the time anyway.
Honestly it’s not performance I’m worried about, it’s connectivity bugs. For a modem reliability is concern number one, and for a generation one product there are quite a few question marks…
It's a budget phone. If it doesn't do huge numbers, I bet Apple does a price drop or a sale down to $499.
Apple bought the Intel modem tech and cooked up this modem. MMwave is a useless technology for mobile. It barely makes sense for fixed wireless. No great loss there.
What I am watching out for is the C1's reception in lower-signal areas. The Intel Modem would often show no service, where the QC modems had 1 bar of usable service.
Apple bought the Intel modem tech and cooked up this modem. MMwave is a useless technology for mobile. It barely makes sense for fixed wireless. No great loss there.
What I am watching out for is the C1's reception in lower-signal areas. The Intel Modem would often show no service, where the QC modems had 1 bar of usable service.
I can’t wait for C4! It’s gunna blow your hand off.
You were lucky. With the Intel modem I would often have 1 or 2 bars and be unable to get a connection or make a phone call longer than a few seconds before the call got dropped.
No. From the Reuters article.
" ... The C1 subsystem is the most complex technology Apple has ever built, with a baseband modem manufactured with advanced 4-nanometer chipmaking technology and a transceiver made with 7-nanometer technology, ..."
Given the A18 is on N3-family ( not N4 ) they are both different process nodes.
Apple might play some "power counts more than bandwidth" games.
" ...
For example, if an iPhone encounters congested data networks, the phone's processor can signal to the modem which traffic is the most time sensitive and put it ahead of other data transfers, making the phone feel more responsive to the user's needs, said Arun Mathias, vice president for wireless software at Apple. .."
They are doing their own judgement about quality of service. As long as the GUI looks/feels 'snappy' does the background stuff go slower? Unclear how much new/unique flow control metadata is being swapped here. The A18 has to work with a discrete Qualcomm and Apple modem so somewhat doubtful they are revolutionary different interfaces. ( having two somewhat redundant interfaces for a small die seems like a stretch. ).
I/O doesn't shrink well. Going to N3 , N2 , 18A , etc doesn't necessarily buy better analog connections. Maybe somewhat advanced packaging so that can put different dies from different nodes in the same package ( and not raise costs an keep up with very high iPhone SoC generation volume. ). For example Apple puts the CPU/GPU/NPU in very close proximity to the modem in the Apple watch all wrapped up in a resin 'container'.
Not sure that is the vision. Apple is using the word 'subsystem' in the actual article. The Cx and the Ayy in the same multi-die package perhaps. But trying to put it all on one die? Probably not.
P.S. At some point Qualcomm probably won't either as keep progressing below N3 . I/O connections are not scaling (shrinking) well.
Apple bought Intel modem business for about $1B . However, Intel bought the modem business from Infineon before that for $1.4B .
Intel bought and largely just kept shipping products. ( in business of selling modems to multiple folks so kind of hard to just stop and still have customers).
Infineon has some baggage about slow adoption of CDMA ( modulation ... not the SIM/backend stuf) that was part of 4G/5G. Intel got into the weeds by trying to push the modem business into using the same fab process at CPU business ( shotgun marriage picking of fab process. instead of trying to be a good fab partner first. Intel spent billions muying more 'customers' for their fabs for a while Altera was another. )
In contrast, Apple wen't 'dark'. That old Intel product is more than 5 years old. There are no guarantees that if 'start over from scratch' what you'll get will be better ( or worse). But Apple bet the farm on a deep reboot.
This modem has been 'dark' so long that it could be either way. Shouldn't assume it is very good or very bad.
Skipping mmWave is a good simplification if starting over from scratch. Decent chance missing more than just that, but will be 'good enough' for the 16e and iPad tasks.
The $600 is about as much as Apple charging higher prices for the Flash/SSD storage increase. Probably not handing that out for 'free'. The 8GB of memory too.
Remains to be seen if greed. Apple is going to sell lots less radios than Qualcomm will (for a long while , unless Qualcomm does something crazy). Cost may not go down much if have to amortize just as much R&D spend that Qualcomm does on a smaller volume radios. Just trading additional R&D expenses for a subset of Qualcomm licensing fees.
Qualcomm is not failing to execute like Intel was . It is much easy to speed past someone stuck in a ditch along the road than it is on someone cruising at a decent speed with few problems.
The interoperability and standards drama ( i.e., overhead) likely is not going to decrease any time soon. Making the next gen isn't going to get cheaper.
Concern about the lack of mmWave in the C1 modem has to be tempered by these considerations:
- It has a very short range--typically less than 1500 feet (500 meters) from the tower/base station.
- It’s blocked by walls, trees, and rain, so it needs line-of-sight to work properly.
- At least currently, it has limited availability since so far it’s been deployed mostly in a few urban areas due to expensive infrastructure.
- Higher power consumption: it can drain battery life faster than sub-6 GHz 5G.
On the other hand, when you need the speed of mmWave and you’re in a location that has it, including having line-of-sight to the tower, I guess you can’t get it unless your device supports it. But it's likely (to look at it optimistically) that Apple is working on getting mmWave into the C2. Until then, it’s likely mmWave won’t be used by very many people, and not having it won't crimp very many people's style or needs, kind of like with the initial phases of the transition from 4G to 5G.
- It has a very short range--typically less than 1500 feet (500 meters) from the tower/base station.
- It’s blocked by walls, trees, and rain, so it needs line-of-sight to work properly.
- At least currently, it has limited availability since so far it’s been deployed mostly in a few urban areas due to expensive infrastructure.
- Higher power consumption: it can drain battery life faster than sub-6 GHz 5G.
On the other hand, when you need the speed of mmWave and you’re in a location that has it, including having line-of-sight to the tower, I guess you can’t get it unless your device supports it. But it's likely (to look at it optimistically) that Apple is working on getting mmWave into the C2. Until then, it’s likely mmWave won’t be used by very many people, and not having it won't crimp very many people's style or needs, kind of like with the initial phases of the transition from 4G to 5G.
Intel made the modem folks 'eat' the Intel fab process. So when 14nm and 10nm (and the associated design tools) drifted off into the weeds.... so did the modem. There were other problems besides fab process. But part of the issue was shooting themselves in the foot. And part of same reason dumped the CPU-iGPUs on the same fab track.
Apple bought lots of IP but the 10nm 5G stuff that wasn't working. That probably large ended up in the 'trash can'. Ditto with lots of design tool that was 'eat your own dogfood' mode also.
Apple was quick to toss out benchmarket charts when the 'smoked' the Intel chips. Their hyper focus on the battery benefits . ( although battery running a video that is stored locally really doesn't need any radio at all. ) . Likewise they bragged about most efficient modem every in an iPhone ( not all smartphones ). Given Apple stopped at Qualcomm x71 ( missed x75 and x80 ? ... we'll see if iPhone 17 just treads water on the x71 for another year).
There is really no data yet to say that flakey reception is burning more power yet. Power consumption does seem to be a major priority focus. So if reception was really bad , then Apple probably would not ship. (because wouldn't be power consumption goals). Pretty good chance early stuff didn't work, but it has also been more than several years since Apple bought the modem business. ( have been burning a 'cost' and zero revenue deficit for years now. They have spent far over a $1B at this point on this. )